Dayo Johnson Akure

THE National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may adopt the indirect mode of primary for its July governorship primary election.

A reliable party source informed vanguard in Akure weekend.

The reason, according to the party stalwart was that “there is no recognized faction of the party in the state, unlike Edo where there are two major contending factions.

READ ALSO:Gov Buni felicitates with Muslim faithful, calls for more prayers

The Unity Forum has been polarised after the endorsement of Chief Olusola Oke as its consensus candidate as other aspirants have vowed to contest the primary election.

Also, speculation was the rife weekend that the leadership of the PDP may have struck a deal with the embattled deputy governor of Ondo State, Agboola Ajayi on his possible defection to the party to pick the governorship ticket.

Ajayi according to a member of the state House of Assembly may defect with no fewer than eight members of the Assembly any moment from now.

How Ajayi will upstage the over ten governorship aspirants already in the race in the opposition PDP remained unknown.

But the source said Ajayi was considering opting out because the national leadership of the APC is considering the indirect mode to pick its candidate for Ondo.

” You know that Akeredolu is in charge of the delegates and the deputy governor had vowed that he would contest against the governor if the APC went ahead to field him.

The PDP deal was discretely facilitated by two PDP governors from Northwest and south respectively

” This is expected to play out shortly the APC NWC’s pronouncement of the indirect mode of primary for Ondo state.

“It is just a matter of time; as soon as the APC announces the mode of primary for Ondo which we believe is likely to be indirect, we will invite all the aspirants from that state to talk to them and allow the incumbent deputy Governor to slug it out with Akeredolu”

Vanguard gathered governor Akeredolu’s decision to drop Ajayi necessitated his movement to the opposition party and slug it out with his boss.

The deputy was Abuja to firm up discussions in respect of the secret pact.

However, a member of the PDP told vanguard that Ajayi has been advised by those in the know of the deal to suppress his ambition since the numerous governorship aspirants might revolt.

“We know how this thing works. It is very difficult to just bring a man who had been out of the party to just come in and pick governorship ticket; so we advised him not to engage the leadership of the party based on his ambition but based on his desire to join the party to stop the incumbent.

“It is just a matter of time because we have to wait for the APC NWC to announce the indirect they are likely to pronounce because, from the look of things, the Governor will be given the ticket to run as a candidate.

Vanguard also learned that “in the last three weeks or so, the Deputy Governor of Ondo has been meeting with the leadership of the PDP at all levels, including members of the PDP NWC.

Contacted, the Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Zadok Akintoye said he was not aware of the parley by the deputy governor and our party leaders.

Akintoye said that what I know is that the deputy governor is not a member of our party. He is a sitting deputy governor of the APC.